For years, the honest objection to building a carbon-removal business was the price. Nobody quite knew what a tonne of durable removal was worth next year, let alone in 2028 — and you can't finance a plant against a number that swings. In 2026 that objection got a lot weaker. Durable CDR pricing has settled near $150 per tonne, and the gap between what buyers will pay and what sellers ask has been slowly closing.
A price that holds is worth more to a producer than a price that occasionally spikes. Here's why a floor — combined with the mega-deals landing alongside it — is the real green light for new capacity.
A Floor, Not Just a Headline Number
“Around $150 a tonne” matters less as a figure than as a behavior. Prices for high-integrity, permanent removal have stopped whipsawing and started holding, with the best credits still earning a premium above the average. That stability is what a floor is: not a promise the price only goes up, but confidence it won't collapse under you mid-contract. For anyone modeling a plant, a defensible floor is the difference between a spreadsheet and a financeable plan.
The Mega-Offtakes Are the Louder Signal
Prices tell you the level; contracts tell you the conviction. In 2026 the contracts got big and long. Bolivia's Exomad Green and London's Supercritical signed a three-year deal for up to 500,000 tonnes of biochar removal, securing the rest of Exomad's 2026 inventory and forward allocations through 2028. Boeing bought a 20,000-tonne portfolio across six suppliers after screening more than 200 projects. These are buyers locking in supply for the 2026–2030 window because they're worried there won't be enough of it.
That's the tell. When large corporate buyers sign multi-year volumes years ahead of delivery, they're not speculating — they're hedging against a shortage. Supply, not demand, is the binding constraint in this market.
Why a Floor Plus a Contract Changes Financing
Put the two together and you get something a lender or investor can actually underwrite. A multi-year offtake at a stable price is a revenue line with a known shape — and that's exactly how modern biochar plants get built. As we've written about the offtake-first playbook, the contract comes first and the construction follows, because the contract is what makes the construction bankable.
A collapsing or unknowable price breaks that chain; a floor plus a signed volume restores it. This is precisely the moment our Build + Operate program is designed for — sizing and structuring a plant against real contracted demand rather than a hopeful forecast.
The Catch: Integrity Is the Price of the Premium
A floor doesn't mean every credit clears at the same value. The market is separating high-integrity removal from the rest, and the premium goes to credits that are permanent, measurable, and cleanly documented. That's a production problem as much as a paperwork one: registries like Puro.earth, Isometric, and Verra reward consistent, well-instrumented operation.
It's why we treat certification as an engineering requirement, not an afterthought. Our equipment is built for the stable operating conditions that make credits defensible, and our carbon-credit guidance walks producers through the pathways that turn sequestration into a buyer-accepted credit. If you want the mechanics, our guide to how biochar carbon credits work lays out the path from production to revenue.
What a New Producer Should Take From This
The read is straightforward. Durable removal has a working price, buyers are contracting years ahead, and there isn't enough certified supply to meet them. The producers who build certifiablecapacity now — and pair it with a signed offtake — are the ones positioned to capture both the product revenue and the carbon premium.
If you have a feedstock stream and you've been waiting for the market to prove itself before committing, this is roughly what that proof looks like. We can help you size the plant, choose the equipment, and line up the offtake so the numbers hold. The window is open while supply is short; it won't stay that way forever.